Drawn to Life occupies a unique middle ground between the RPG and Sims/Civilization style “world building” genres. In effect, while adhering closely to the standard RPG template, the game also places you in the non specifically religious role of “the Creator”. As “the Creator” you get to, well, more or less create the world you live in, inclusive of the forest and surrounding towns and most importantly, the game’s hero. For any of you prospective buyers intrigued by the RPG aspect but nervous about the artistic end, fear not - Drawn to Life provides you with optional ready-made character templates. Of course, most gamers interested in such a game would most likely be drawn in by the uniqueness of the you-draw-it-we-bring-it-to-life aspect in the first place, so even mentioning that caveat seems a bit odd. Nonetheless, to each his own, and as the late Bob Ross used to say, “it’s your world.”
OK, here’s the plot: darkness has fallen over the town of Raposa. Apparently, a villager named Wilfre has conjured up “shadow creatures” which have overrun the town and forced most of the villagers out. In times past, “the Creator” has watched over the town so things like this wouldn’t happen in the first place, so now it’s up to you to get up off your delinquent rear end and save the village. One of your first tasks is the most important - to create a hero using a mannequin found in the imaginatively monikered “Creation Hall.” From here on out, you get several opportunities throughout the course of the game to create various items, weapons, etc. to help your hero complete his task.
The game essentially consists of you (as the hero) in the village, being given a task by the Mayor or townspeople. After a bit of discussion with one person, you get sent to locate someone else around the village, which person usually sends you back to go talk to the first person again. This goes on and on, Animal Crossing-style, before you’re finally granted your task, then proceeding to a particular gate corresponding to the area in question for completion of said task. Tasks consist of your searching for missing pages from “the Book of Life” (is your name written there?) or rescuing villagers trapped in the clutches of the “shadow creatures.” The levels are fairly straightforward and don’t present much of a challenge for seasoned gamers, though it’s not strictly for the kiddies (who might find things a bit too difficult). In most of these levels you need to create, draw, or color an item in order to progress further in the game, said items ranging from an ice cube to a submarine to clouds.
Unfortunately, the village portion of the game can get a bit tedious and tiresome. To put it bluntly, all this running back and forth is boring. There really isn’t much to do or explore in the village, which starts off with a whopping 3 residents and grows in glacial increments of three per level successfully completed. In other words, it takes quite a long time to open up the village to any appreciable extent, and it’s not like things get any more interesting around town when it does.
Similarly, the game’s much vaunted drawing is limited to the use of set shapes and design templates. Those with a more creative bent, looking to create a hero with a more unusual look and physical structure are out of luck. These limitations in size and shape similarly apply to everything you get to “create” in the course of the game. While such restrictions are understandable (considering how hard it could be to program for exceptions like that), I found this disappointing nevertheless. Even so, those with the imagination to work within a set of proscribed limitations should have a lot of fun here, and consider Drawn to Life a worthwhile purchase.
Bottom Line:
Drawn to Life is a quirky, fun little game which takes advantage of the Nintendo DS’s unique capabilities like no other game in current production. A large portion of the proceedings depend on your personal imagination and ability to draw or color with a stylus. Anyone who enjoys more interactive games than the standard should have a lot of fun with this one. The RPG platform could definitely stand a bit of a difficulty upgrade, but does it really matter when you’re having this much fun?
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| 8.0 |
Posted: 2007-11-06 17:09:14 PST